Bend it like Einstein: spacetime and the politics of Big Time

Time flies, you can't is one of the deep philosophical constructs the blogster remembers from an earlier time, when summers lasted forever, when Christmas was over in a heartbeat, when every day in school consisted of a succession of units that were technically of equal length but felt utterly and disconcertingly uneven and bumpy.

When they finally taught us about Einstein's space-time, the single concept that recognizes the union of space and time, some of us kids went "duh, obviously, it just feels right", and we would spend a good part of the next summer vacation sitting still on the porch, trying to slow down time through sheer will power.

Others, of course, wanted to speed it up, eager for that driver's license, for a boyfriend or a girlfriend, doing all sorts of crazy things to make the final years before the coveted status of "adult" pass more quickly than the adults advised us they would.

Since then, a lot has happened. For some of us, time stopped and never resumed.

The rest of us in most Western countries, well, we face the twice yearly ritual of daylight saving time, or - as some old folks in France call it to this day: l'heure allemande, German time.

The blogster wanted to write about the superstitions people hold with regard to time and found a wonderful example on the web site of German weekly Der Spiegel: When East Germany wanted to be ahead of its time.

It is a tremendously funny, yet sad piece about the introduction of daylight saving time in East and West Germany in 1980. The two countries had been discussing daylight saving time for years when East Germany simply went ahead with it in 1980. Der Spiegel says the West Germans were shocked and hastily followed suit, with considerable disruption due to insufficient planning.

Getting all bent out of shape because someone advances the clock by an hour illustrates the creeping suspicion the blogster harbored as a teen: life as an adult might not be all it was cracked up to be.

And that is the true meaning of daylight saving time: we make it up as we go.